


It's a Small World After All

by The_Winter_Straw



Series: Free Fic Raffle Prizes [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), F/M, POV Second Person, Reader-Insert, Romance, Super soldier reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23989618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Winter_Straw/pseuds/The_Winter_Straw
Summary: “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” –The Divine Comedy
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Series: Free Fic Raffle Prizes [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687426
Kudos: 22





	It's a Small World After All

**Author's Note:**

> Very simple requirements this time: Bucky goes to rescue the reader, a girl he once trained as a fellow super soldier. To date, it's the only one I turned in late. It required at least three several-thousand word rewrites. If I had the exact same prompt and another four weeks to do it, I'd probably turn something entirely different in.
> 
> Winner October 2019: Ravy/Ravon2989  
> 

The world had been so small when Bucky Barnes had been a child. His life formed a well-worn path between his family home, his school, and his best friend’s apartment. Moving between these locations had been as easy and as natural to him as breathing. He considered only passingly the possibility of seeing more of the world—until that small world grew larger _for_ him and that breathing got a lot less easy. 

Why had it been that he had thrown himself into that new open space? Had it been patriotism? Belief in the cause? Or some long-buried, selfish feeling that he deserved to know more than late hours working at the docks to ensure Steve would have medicine and art supplies in the coming days? The latter had been true, Bucky decided decades later, because punishment followed swiftly and extensively. His choice cracked the world open like an egg. He felt every continent beneath his own two feet; many countries felt his impact even if no one there spotted him. Though the earth was huge, he was a big part of it. 

That was what _they_ had told him, at any rate. Now he knew the truth: the world was small and he was smaller still. Countless countries. Innumerable gunshots. And yet he found himself back at the very beginning, back where it all started, back at the very gates of his own personal hell. 

“I guess Dante was right about one thing,” remarked the woman at his shoulder. 

Natasha Romanoff’s already diminutive stature looked all the tinier swallowed up as it was in winter gear. The few visible strands of her hair looked like bright bleeding cuts against her pale face, so great was the contrast between that and the snow-patterned camouflage that covered her from head to foot. White flakes of snow clung to her long, upswept eyelashes, and every breath she exhaled released a small cloud of moisture toward the stark white sky. She was cold—and yet, despite being much less dressed for the weather, Bucky felt nothing at all. No cold. No nerves. Just a dead resignation deep within his tired bones. 

“You don’t have to go in there,” she added at this silence. “We can take care of it from here.” 

Before Bucky could so much as open his mouth to reply, a large hand covered his shoulder and drew him up short. 

“No, we can’t,” said the owner of the voice. 

Steve Rogers shot Bucky what was _almost_ a familiar smile, but far too small and grim to ring any of the bells in the latter’s shoddy memory. He’d already slipped into Captain America-mode. Bucky would have expected that to take a little longer since Steve, too, had forgone his usual lurid costume for something a little warmer. Still, it was enough. Maybe it didn’t remind Bucky of their childhood; it still reminded him of following Steve through Purgatory. It also reminded him he couldn’t just stand there staring into the distance all day. 

“Thanks, Steve,” he said at last, shifting his shoulder just enough to get Steve to drop his hand. Good as it felt, Bucky worried that an anchor would only hold him back. Steve understood, or Bucky assumed he did. He thought he saw the start of a real smile on his face, but then Bucky’s eyes fell again on the entrance to the low metal building that sat half-hidden in ice far ahead. Bucky had gone inside there once—and he’d never really come back out. 

“If you’re not ready, we can come back tomorrow,” Steve said. 

“No. Too much time already wasted looking for this damn place. If they have any idea we’re around, they’ll pack up and we’ll have to start over from scratch. We might already not have got here in time.” 

“It’s not your fault they wiped your memory of this location before bringing you stateside,” Natasha said sympathetically. 

Wasn’t it? Bucky felt it must have been. All of this information had been inside his head the entire time. Shuri should not have had to shake so hard to pry it loose, especially since she hadn’t _liked_ shaking so hard to begin with. If he had wanted it badly enough, surely he could have spared her the pain. He should have known they’d bring him back here somehow. 

Natasha touched him softly on his flesh hand. “You don’t have to do this, Jim.” 

“Yeah, I do.” 

“Jim—” 

“He knows the risks, Nat,” Steve broke in. 

“I’m not concerned about you getting hurt. You going back in there… _I_ wouldn’t go back inside Red Room for something like this.” 

“Sure you would. If it was Clint or Steve or Sam in there. Or me.” Bucky forced a smile. “It won’t work without me there, Talia. You know that.” 

She turned to Steve imploringly. “Steve, you can’t honestly tell me you’re okay with this.” 

“It’s not my favorite idea Buck’s ever had,” Steve confessed, “but if there’s even a chance he’s right, we’ve got to do this. And he has to be here. She's not going to come with either of us.” 

The nod Steve and Bucky shared seemed enough to get Natasha to drop the subject. Bucky knew she wasn’t really convinced, but she _was_ outnumbered. Considering that every minute they spent arguing was a minute she had to remain outside in the cold, outnumbered could convince her to do something she otherwise wouldn’t. 

“What’s our plan, then?” Natasha asked. 

“No one’s come out to greet us yet. You think they know we’re here?” said Steve. 

They both looked at Bucky as though they expected _him_ to lead—not only to lead but to _remember_. Even his recovered memories remained coated in a haze of drugs and electricity and madness. To ask him to know where to go inside that building seemed ludicrous to him. To ask that he take _charge_ seemed more ludicrous still. He was not a leader. Following defined his life. For the first time that he could remember, he felt a stirring of nerves deep inside the pit of his stomach. Whether or not he _could_ lead was irrelevant. Unless he wanted to spend _all_ his life herding goats on the outskirts of Wakanda, he had to prove that he was capable of more. This was his first mission since the terrible fight with Tony Stark, and Bucky's first personal mission since the same. Much more remained at stake than his future occupation. 

“I’m headed to the back,” he said at last, “as deep and as far as I can go. Alone.” 

He paused to allow either of his companions to interrupt. Neither did. 

“It’s an old base. I have no recollection of being here after the first few years. They’ve probably retreated to this place after the Avengers destroyed so many of the others. There might be some defensive wards in place, but they’re likely to be minimum if the people here have bothered to update them at all.” 

“Any Enhanced?” asked Steve. 

“Other than her?” Bucky shrugged. Not for the first time, he realized how blind he really was going into this. Time was of the essence. He had rushed not only himself, but Shuri and Steve and Natasha and Sam as well. If any of them _died_ because Bucky wanted to chase ghosts… 

Again Steve placed a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve faced unexpected Enhanced before. This base is too small for us to be overwhelmed. Natasha and I will make sure you can get where you need to go, whatever happens.” 

“That’s all I need.” 

There was no more procrastinating to be done. All those nerves Bucky had felt earlier crawled across his skin; he felt like he might scratch himself to ribbons if he stood there a second longer. He took his first step forward. Then another. Then another. 

“What do we do if we find that chair?” Natasha called after him. 

“Do me a favor.” Bucky cocked his gun. “Break it to bits.” 

The snow swallowed him up shortly after. Nothing remained in the world except for Bucky and the dark shape in the distance toward which he trudged. No sound cracked the muffled quiet that descended upon him, save for his steady breathing and the vague pounding of his own heart inside his ears. How often had this fog of nothingness surrounded him before? Screaming, followed by silence, followed by blood—an easy, endless loop. 

Bucky shook his head to dislodge his fuzzy thoughts. He was _not_ falling back; he was _moving forward_. There was a marked difference between being dragged into Hell and storming its gates. Natasha and Steve would not be far behind. They were only waiting just outside of the range of any possible thermal imaging camera HYDRA might have until Bucky’s arrival distracted any waiting agents. That meant that he was not really entering this pit alone. Nothing was going to happen to him. More importantly, nothing was going to you. Not ever again. Not if he could help it. 

His forceful thinking got him to the doors much sooner than he anticipated. Two smooth sheets of metal loomed suddenly before him. He hesitated. Shouldn’t _someone_ have made a move to stop him from getting this close without being incapacitated in some way? Sam had confirmed with a flyover that very morning that there were multiple heat signatures inside. No. They knew he was out there. Why they were waiting, he did not know. Perhaps they were frightened. Perhaps they were preparing to shoot him the moment he tore the place open. The reason didn’t matter. Bucky lifted his metal hand, preparing to wrench the doors part, then— 

—they opened up all their own, smoothly, quickly, with no squeal of rust. White light spilled forth from the opening, blinding Bucky long enough for someone to say: 

“My boy. You’ve come _home_.” 

Whoever spoke was little more than a black shape to Bucky’s still-adjusting eyes, but they were stooped and their arms did not appear angled correctly. The voice, though—Bucky _knew_ the voice, old and wispy though it might have been. It was this familiarity that caused him to obey when the voice went on: 

“Come in, come in from the cold. Let me take a look at you. It’s been a long time.” 

In Bucky went. His feet had crossed this same threshold dozens of times. They could do so again a dozen times more. A stillborn scream froze inside his throat as the doors slid shut behind him. At that exact same moment, a set of clammy, gnarled fingers snatched his chin and guided his head from side to side. 

“Hmm. I see no cause for concern. It seems they’ve kept you mostly intact.” 

Bucky snapped back into himself. He wrenched his face from the old man’s grasp, stepped back, and held his gun at the ready. The face above those wrinkled hands did not connect with anything in Bucky’s admittedly unreliable memory, even now that he could see it. All he could say for sure was that looking into the deep-set, milky eyes in that pale face caused a feeling of immense gratification to surge within him—only to be crushed at once by the greatest sense of disgust Bucky had ever felt. 

The eyes narrowed on the barrel of Bucky’s M249 SAW. “Did you come here to kill me, James?” the man asked. 

That there had to be a pause between the question and his answer at all shamed Bucky greatly, but at least his voice was firm when that answered did come: “If that’s what it takes.” 

A flurry of movement in the room beyond revealed several other people to be inside with them. Men and women, all in HYDRA uniform, rose behind the old man with weapons drawn. Bucky could spare each person only a quick glance, but that was enough to confirm that none of them were you. He relax, but only a little. 

“Sit back down, all of you,” snapped the man. None of them did. He returned his attention to Bucky nonetheless. “If that’s what it takes to do what?” 

“Where is she?” Bucky demanded. 

“She? Who is she?” 

“Don’t play dumb with me. She wasn’t at the Siberian facility, so I know you must have moved her. Where is [Name]?” 

“You assume too much. She always was the inferior model. What would we want with her now, when we’ve spent all this time waiting for you?” 

“ _You_ assume too much.” The man didn’t even flinch when Bucky stepped forward with his teeth grit. “All the rest of them got a bullet to the head. I can think of _lots_ of reasons you’d want to pull her all the way out here.” 

A frown further creased the man’s face as tutted. “Thinking again, James? That must hurt. If you’ll only come with me—” 

“Don’t touch me.” Bucky hit the man’s reaching hand away with as much as force as he could muster. “Tell me where you’re keeping her, or I’ll blow your head off. You know I’m capable of it.” 

“Not anymore. Not after you’ve let the outside world corrupt you. You used to be _perfect_. Didn’t you come here because you want to be made perfect again?” 

“I came back for [Name]. Nothing else,” Bucky said. 

“If you return to your chair willingly, I’ll give her to you. You can do whatever you want with her. No one will tell you otherwise this time.” 

His flesh finger looped around the trigger on his gun. Probably the man was right: Bucky’s time with kind people—people like Steve, Sam, Natasha, Shuri, and T’Challa—had made him unwilling to kill a human being. But it wasn’t just that. Bucky had been a soldier long, long before HYDRA got their claws into him, but he had never been a killer. Now that he was free, he chose not to be a killer again. _These_ people didn’t need to know that. 

The old man seemed to sense Bucky’s reluctance anyway. He sighed, shaking his wizened head. “I _had_ hoped you’d come here because you _wanted_ to. You know the procedure works better when you aren’t fighting it. Have it your way.” 

A single gesture from him had the rest of the HYDRA agents cocking their own weapons and training them directly on Bucky. Before a single shot could be fired on either side, the doors behind him burst open. Steve’s shield caught the old man on the shoulder after Bucky threw himself to the side to avoid the projectile. In the resulting chaos, a grenade rolled into the room. He recognized it at once as a flash grenade, and squeezed his eyes shut as he dove behind the nearest table. 

“He didn’t come alone! Get them!” the old man shrieked. 

Bullets whizzed through the air. The ones coming from one side of the room ricocheted with resounding _clang_ s off Steve’s shield; those from the other hit their mark and forced whoever Natasha struck to the ground. Bucky stayed where he was, unable to find enough time between shots fired to force his way through. 

Then Natasha materialized at his elbow. “Sam says there’s a heat signature by itself at the very back. Go. Steve and I will make sure that no one follows you.” 

That was all the incentive that he needed. He nodded once, then rolled out into the open just long enough to throw himself down the dark maw leading deeper into the facility. No lights remained there; those that still hung from the ceiling had burnt out years ago and were burnt out still. Blackness pressed tangibly against Bucky’s eyes, but he kept going, trusting his subconscious to keep his feet going down the right paths. He forced himself to not look from side to side. There were monsters much worse than the old man lurking in the shadows, if he would only look at and remember them. 

He wasn’t going to let them coalesce—not inside the vacant cells he knew he was running past, not inside the chambers covered in blood that never quite came off, not inside the laboratories built so far underground that no screaming could be heard coming from inside them. Bucky wasn’t going to let the ghosts of his past stop him from reaching his goal. The agents spilling from doors beyond his vision weren’t going to stop him either. They fell before him, hit with his SAW or his metal arm, and did not get up again. 

Farther he went, and deeper. His skin crawled at the thought of being so far from even the cloud-veiled sun above. Heavy breaths issued from his mouth as he tried to keep his mind from thoughts of being buried alive—figuratively _and_ literally. Natasha and Steve would come for him if he did not resurface in time. Until then, Bucky had a job to do. He swallowed the taste of fear off his tongue. 

“[Name]!” He could hold back no longer. Your name burst from his mouth and echoed back to him from the empty stone walls surrounding him. Here. You had to be _here_ , yet he could find no sign of you. 

“Bucky?” 

The voice was so quiet that it might have been his boot scuffling against the floor. Only his automatic twisting in the direction from which the word issued allowed him to see the ghastly apparition beyond the rusted bars of a cell he’d run straight past only seconds before. He could not quite fit the face with image from his dreams, but it was you. It could be no one else. Bucky’s lips quirked into an eager smile as he jogged back the direction he had come from, swinging his gun into place on his back as he went. 

“[Name], I—” he began, but cut off once he got a better look at you. Your eyes, dark and huge in a gaunt face, glittered faintly as you eyed him in return. Thin, bony fingers wrapped tightly around the bars. “[Name].” 

Your name was almost a prayer in that moment. Whatever you looked like, whatever reason they had to bring you back to this godforsaken place, he had not imagined you, not come here on some buried trigger Shuri hadn’t fished out, not made up a story about a girl he loved just to lead his friends to being shot in the middle of a barren wasteland. No, you were _real_. No amount of brainwashing could have convinced him to smell the terrible stench wafting from your emaciated body. 

“Let’s get you out of here,” he said, and headed for the lock. 

You, however, didn’t move. Your eyes seemed riveted to his face. “What are you doing here?” 

“What do you _think_ I’m doing? I came here to see you.” 

His half-exasperated words had the exact opposite effect on you than he had expected. You did not look relieved, joyous, or even hopeful. Instead, what little color remained in your [skin tone] face drained away. Several ragged breaths tore from your thin, trembling lips; your legs quavered beneath you, only held up by the vice-like grip you had on the bars between the two of you. 

“I’m sorry,” you whispered. 

“Sorry?” Still lightheaded from seeing you outside his dreams for the first time since he’d fallen into to the Potomac, he couldn’t entirely suppress a hoarse chuckle. “What’re you sorry for?” 

“Everything. Running away. Letting them take me. Letting them take _you_. Helping them—” 

“You couldn’t help it.” 

“Because I finally _gave in_.” 

A hiccup interrupted the last two words. Bucky suspected that if you weren’t so badly dehydrated, you would have cried. He wished he’d thought to pack water—but Sam would have some waiting. Sam was always good at anticipating what people would need. Unfortunately, you would need a lot. Super Soldier Serum or not, that you remained standing in your present condition was a miracle. 

Very slowly, he reached his flesh hand inside your cell to touch your cheek. “How long have they kept you down here?” he asked. 

It wasn’t exactly fair of him to ask. Once upon a time, HYDRA’s success with the Winter Soldier spurred them on to other projects. They thought of more Soldiers, enough to carry on a war. Not every single one that came after Bucky had been a volunteer. So you were born, programmed. He only hoped that enough time had passed that you were no longer _conditioned_ to answer him. That you recognized him and had not flinched away from his touch gave him some hope of that. Still it took you some time to reply: 

“Since…since INSIGHT failed. You didn’t come back after the helicarriers went down. So they—retrieved me.” 

“That was almost three years ago!” 

“Was it? They must come down here and feed me more often than I notice.” 

Bucky didn’t crack a smile at your attempt at a joke. Nausea bubbled in the pit of his stomach. Three years you’d been down here while he ate plums and visited museums. He didn’t care if he had only just really remembered you. If he had cared—if he had _really_ cared—he would have remembered you sooner. 

“Don’t look like that.” A weak smile pulled up the corners of your mouth. “They thought you’d come back for me eventually, even when I told them the last handlers wiped your memory of our lessons from you. I was their last hope. But I’m glad, Bucky. I’m glad you were able to get away from them. I’m glad you didn’t come back for me. Maybe we’ll end up in the same place, after you die, and I can apologize for real.” 

The nausea froze like ice. Not only had you been stuck down here _alone_ for three years, you were so hungry and so tired that you thought he wasn’t real now that he was really there. Hallucinations were not uncommon in HYDRA’s Soldiers—it was hard to say whether they came from the serum or the torture—but he had never known you to have one. He himself had dreamed of Steve—or the Commandos, or you, or even Peggy Carter—arriving to rescue him, even after the pain had seared the knowledge of who those people were from his mind. He had felt them, too, heard them. They all disappeared before they could be of any help. Bucky was not going to disappear, but how could he convince you of that? 

He did the only thing none of the people in _his_ deranged imaginings had thought to do: He kissed you. 

As far as reunion kisses went, it was not some sweeping, grandiose thing out of the pictures Steve and Bucky would watch at the movie theater just to get out of their crummy apartment for a little while. He could only get his mouth so far through the rust-flaking bars. You must have been startled, because you didn’t move forward to make his reaching any easier…but you didn’t back away either. Your lips were cold, and so chapped that Bucky felt the peeling skin cut into his own lips. A sickly sweet taste covered his tongue: the familiar ooze of rotting teeth. 

He didn’t care. He would have kissed you in those same conditions again and again and again and again, if each and every time you would blink up at him when he stopped with color returning to your cheeks. 

“Bucky?” Now you sounded incredulous, only to suddenly stop and shake your head as horror washed over your features once more. “No. No, you—you have to _go_. They can’t find you here. They’ll put you back in the chair.” 

Even as you urged him to run as he had once urged you, you reached for him. A trembling hand touched him. You stopped only when the door prevented you from moving any farther toward him. 

Bucky shook his head. “Without you? I’m not whole without you. I didn’t come here to crawl back to HYDRA like a dog.” 

“Then why would you come _here_? Why would you come back to where this all started?” 

“Come on, [Name]. Do I really need to spell it out for you?” he asked. 

Your face twisted with confusion. He grinned in return. After a quick squeeze of your hand, he turned his attention to the door. Somehow he already knew it wouldn’t take much to tear it from its hinges. It never would have, even before the decay set in. He had simply stopped questioning the people who told him he did not have the strength to get away. Things were different now; Bucky had plenty of strength to get _you_ away. All that stood between the two of you and freedom were the same bars that held him back before. Gritting his teeth, he spread his arms out wide and grabbed bars with both hands. Then he heaved. 

An enormous screeching of metal against stone filled the air; debris fell from the ceiling onto his head. Bucky ignored it all. He kept going even though the noise was like a knife through his brain, until, at last, he wrenched the entire cell door out of its place. You stood wide-eyed in the empty space beyond until he casually tossed the object onto the floor behind him with a loud _bang_! 

“It’s…it’s really you.” You lifted a shaking hand to your mouth. “You really came.” 

“‘Course I did. Couldn’t leave my best girl behind, could I? Can you walk?” he added, as he came up next to you and looped his metal arm around your waist. 

Though you still looked somewhat dazed, you nodded. “A little.” 

“Good.” 

He led you gingerly back the way you came. This walk was slower going. You leaned heavily upon him—but given that you hadn’t eaten, even your increased weight compared to other women your size could hardly impact Bucky. Heavy breaths issued from your mouth as though every step were difficult. Still you went on. If you noticed the men and women strewn across the pathway, you did not mention them or give them a second glance. All your strength seemed to be focused on holding onto him. 

“How are we going to get out, though? There are plenty of scientists here,” you said, after several minutes of staggering through the dark hallways. 

Bucky stopped long enough to lift you over a particularly stout body. “Don’t worry. They’re taken care of. I brought—” 

“Not one more step!” 

He instinctively pushed you behind him, and not a minute too soon. Ahead, illuminated once more by the light in the front room, stood the old man that had greeted Bucky at the front door. Bruises and cuts decorated his sagging face. He would have been easy enough to bowl over, if he didn’t also have a gun leveled right at Bucky’s chest. 

“I will not lose both of my pets in one go!” the man wheezed. “I may not have created either of you, but I know enough to get you back in shape. I will recreate HYDRA from the ground up, and to do that, I need the Assets. You are _mine_! You will return to a cell, and _wait_ there until I can get you in your chair! Do you understand me?” 

Neither of you answered. Bucky looked down to find you staring intently at him instead of the man. 

“Would you like to do the honors?” he asked. 

Rather than reply, you stepped around him and right up to the sweating man. He lowered the pistol at your approach. You simply gazed at him for nearly an entire minute. 

“Good girl! You have performed _beautifully_! I always knew you’d bring him back to me in the end. You will be rewarded for your good behavior, I assure you,” the man said. 

You smiled sweetly. Then, in one lightning-fast movement Bucky would not have thought you capable of in your current condition, you lifted one leg, slung your foot straight into the man’s windpipe, and spat in his face the moment his head hit the cement. 

“I’m not your _pet_ ,” you snarled, “and I am never, _never_ going back into a cell.” 

Unconscious or dead, the man didn’t answer. 

“You always were my favorite student,” Bucky said fondly. 

When he reached to help you forward again, you shook him off. You paused until you were able to stand at your full height. This time you walked on your own toward the small square of light ahead. Only now that the obstacle in front of it had been removed did Bucky realize that the light was no longer white. No, it was more orange now, and unsteady. This went unremarked upon as the two of you continued on your way. Not once did you stop to breathe. Not once did you stop to look back, not until you peeked into the room and immediately drew away. 

“It’s okay,” Bucky said. At least, he hoped it was. He put a lot of faith in Steve and Natasha, but he was so close to a happy ending that their survival seemed impossible. Before he went inside himself, he took a deep breath. 

This steeling of his nerves proved unnecessary. In the center of room, among the shattered light bulbs and twisted remains of the door, was an enormous crackling fire. Steve stood nearby, and Natasha was crouched right next to flames, unhooded, hair mussed, and breaking an oddly-shaped object into smaller pieces in her hands. 

“We found your chair,” she said without preamble. 

Steve did his best to suppress a relieved grin when Bucky’s gaze got to him. Bucky tried not to feel annoyed by it. Had he not just worried himself over Steve’s ability to cope with a small army of HYDRA agents? If they hadn't got over their need to look after one another after all this time, Bucky doubted they ever would. 

“We got cold waiting for you,” Steve explained. Then he turned his smile toward you as you crept up to Bucky’s side. “Nice to finally meet you in person. Bucky’s told us a lot about you.” 

“They’re with me,” Bucky assured you upon your nervous glance. 

You relaxed at once. 

Having tossed what remained of the broken chair into the fire, Natasha stood up. She nodded at you as she swept her hood back over her hair. “Ready to go?” she asked. 

Nothing inside the room made him want to stay. Nothing in the room made him think he ought to. What relief! The only thing in the world that would allow him to enter Hell again with hope was you. He caught your eye before offering you his hand. 

“How about you, [Name]? Ready to go?” Bucky asked. 

Your eyes glided over the same ruined computers and papers that his had. Then you looked from his face to his hand and back again. “We really get to leave? Together?” 

“I’m here to take you home,” was Bucky’s only answer, but it was enough. A dry sob launched you into his arms. Bucky caught you with a laugh as you pressed your face into his neck. So what if you smelled awful? So what if you didn’t feel quite the same? You were you, and you’d be more you than ever after you’d spent a little time with Shuri. He headed for the door still carrying you like that. Natasha and Steve exchanged a look he didn’t understand, then went to follow him out of the building. 

Cold wind and ice slashed across his exposed skin. He could feel the cold now, but he kept going. Sam was not so far away that either of you would freeze. The world was small, after all—so small, in fact, that Bucky’s world was encompassed in the woman he held to his chest. Bucky didn’t need to see more of it, didn’t need to make enormous changes, as long as you were always there to be the world for him. And now you would be, for however long the two of you had left in the warm places far away from Hell.


End file.
